Journalists Targeted in On-Going Conflict in Syria

In the vicious battles for power, both the Syrian authorities and armed opposition groups have deliberately targeted journalists who are risking their lives to report on the conflict and expose abuses (Photo Credit: Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images).

Scores of journalists reporting on human rights abuses in Syria have been killed, arbitrarily arrested, detained, subjected to enforced disappearances and tortured over the last two years, Amnesty International said in a report released today, World Press Freedom Day.

These abuses have been carried out by the Syrian authorities and armed opposition groups, turning Syria into a highly dangerous country for journalists to work in.

It also details the crucial role played by citizen journalists, many of whom risk their lives to make sure information about what’s going on inside the country is released to the outside world. Like their professional colleagues, this group has faced reprisals to prevent them carrying out their work.

Journalists are not the only civilians under threat in Syria, but so far at least 36 have died in what are believed to be targeted attacks.

Independent newspapers, and radio and television stations have not been permitted to operate freely in Syria for decades.

A state of emergency, in force from 1963 to April 2011, has now ended, but journalists continue to be persecuted for reporting a wide range of subjects, including human rights violations carried out by the authorities.

New laws ostensibly providing greater freedom of expression have done nothing to improve the situation in practice.

In 2011, the Syrian authorities stepped up their repressive tactics to prevent media coverage of the then mainly peaceful uprising by introducing a virtual news blackout on mainstream media outlets between March and December.

The heavy restrictions placed on the mainstream media have led to a surge in citizen journalism, where people who are not professional journalists post information about the conflict on social networking sites.

Journalists targeted include Palestinian writer and journalist Salameh Kaileh, who was arrested on April 24, 2012 by Air force Intelligence after he criticized the new constitution.

He was taken to a detention center in Damascus, where he was forced to strip to his underwear in a room holding 35 men. He told Amnesty International that he was blindfolded and tortured with falaqa (beating the soles of the feet).

He was even tortured when he was transferred to a hospital before he was finally released and deported to Jordan.

In another case, state television presenter Mohammed al-Sa’eed was reportedly abducted from his home in Damascus in July 2012 and subsequently killed by Jabhat Al-Nusra, an Islamist armed opposition group.

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